Accordingly the Brotherhood adopted the slogan "The Koran is our constitution" around which all of society should be organised. To al-Banna there was no difference between religion and politics because religion was politics.
Over the decades, from this Islamist ideological trunk have sprung more radical offshoots, including al-Qaeda. For it was al-Banna who inspired the jihadist belief in elevating death over life, which arouses such incomprehension in the rest of us.
Today the original "Society of Muslim Brothers", as al-Banna called his group, has morphed into a broader movement which the Brotherhood's former "Supreme Guide" Mohamed Akef says now spans more than 70 countries. Some say that following the collapse of fascism and Communism it is fast becoming the latest — and potentially most dangerous —of history's grand political ideas. The former head of the MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, for example, has described the Muslim Brotherhood as being "at heart, a terrorist organisation".
Let me be clear: followers of the Brotherhood in Britain are not advocating violent jihad here. They condemned the beheading in May of Drummer Lee Rigby by two Muslims on a London street in broad daylight. Their organisations have civic-sounding names; they emphasise human rights, respect for democracy and integration.
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